PREFACE. Xvii 



Society, for the exquisite traces which they can show, Solomon was 

 not arrayed like the lilies of the field. The Manchester manu- 

 facturers would do well to dress out the ladies of this generation 

 in the spoils of the colors and forms of these brilliant creatures. 

 There would be something new as well as charming in rhinoceros- 

 kidney mousseline-de-laines ; in shawls according to the inner 

 splendors of the burnished beetle's wing; in veils worked to repre- 

 sent the many-eyedness of the blue -bottle; or in a mantilla on the 

 back of a professor's wife glorious with mimic cell-germs. Here 

 would be a mission for the microscope, and a final cause for the 

 corporation which represents it, which would then take rank as a 

 sub-committee of Drapers' Hall. It would be good to be small, 

 when it enabled you to dive into little cracks and holes whence real 

 beauty could be fetched. And by gaining this practical object, of 

 ornamenting outsides, the Lilliputian people would cease to infest 

 physiology, and leave Gulliver's inside alone. 



Such, we believe in our hearts, would be the art corresponding to 

 the present state of this science. For we notice that every little 

 discovery is so straitly held and claimed by the finder, and the label 

 of "My Truth" is so decisively pinned to each fresh zig-zag of cell 

 work — as though the man had not only seen that special quirk, but 

 made it — that we cannot help thinking that Show is the fire which 

 is heaving under this uneasy stratum of the Small Seers. Our 

 proposition, which we hope to see adopted long before the next 

 "World's Exhibition" in London, exactly jumps with this passion 

 for display, but by carrying it over to our ladies renders it both 

 beautiful and harmless. Let " my" family wear the blazon of " my 

 truth" as they walk before me to church. 



There is one part of our work which we think it right to mention, 

 but for which we do not apologize. Throughout the following pages, 

 we have taken for granted the Divinity of Christ and the truth of 

 Christianity, and with this tacit assumption we have labored to con- 

 nect the whole of our general views. There is no escape from some 

 step of this kind : the atheist takes for granted his atheism, and 

 works in its darkness; he sees no God because he looks from none, 

 and for none : and in every sect, that most comprehensive aspect of 



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